


Warmth (Memories)

by captchaluff



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bullying, Connor being a good friend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, i saved this on my computer as "evan's terrible self esteem"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 20:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captchaluff/pseuds/captchaluff
Summary: Evan was bullied a little in middle school. So what? It's not a big deal. Why does he keep making a big deal about it?





	Warmth (Memories)

Evan and Connor aren’t friends. Sure, maybe they exchanged numbers, and they sit together at lunch, and they help each other down from their respective panic attacks. And yeah, sometimes Connor will drive him home and buy something for the both of them at McDonald’s even though Evan swears he’s not hungry and he doesn’t want Connor to waste money on him. That doesn’t mean Connor and Evan are actually friends.

Evan has to remind himself of that a lot, that Connor is just lonely and desperate for company. He doesn’t really like Evan, he just wants a friend so badly that he’d put up with anyone, even someone as fundamentally repulsive as Evan. Evan doesn’t mind though, he knows how that feels.

Or maybe it’s the other way around, and Connor feels bad that Evan has no friends. Maybe Connor just sticks around out of pity, waiting for Evan to give him a reason to get that weird awkward pathetic loser out of his life.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that this is all some kind of joke. Maybe Connor hates Evan, and he goes home every day and laughs his ass off because Evan Hansen of all people thought someone might actually like him. Evan doesn’t like considering this possibility, but it’s a lot more likely than he wants to admit. If there’s one thing Evan has learned over the years, it’s that he’s not the type of person other people like.

Well, his mom likes him, somehow, even though all he does is give her more work and more things to pay for. Jared feels obligated to talk to him because their moms are friends, and Alana is acquaintances with practically everyone in the school. Before Connor, no one else even knew Evan’s name.

It’s weird, sometimes, to realize you could disappear and only a few people would notice. It makes Evan almost miss when everyone hated his guts in middle school.

(He kept finding notes in his locker: _Kill yourself, Loser, No one likes you, Retarded, Fatass, Just kill yourself_. He changed lockers five times before deciding to just carry his textbooks with him.)

As he sits down for another lunch with Connor, he can't remember whether they went to the same middle school or not. Maybe Connor had written some of the notes. It was practically a school project for a few months, so it’s not like Evan could blame him. Jared wrote some. Everyone did.

“Do you- um, do you remember much of- of middle school?” Evan asks in between bites of meatloaf.

“Not really,” Connor replies, “I was pretty wrapped up in my own shit.”

“Oh.” Evan can’t tell if he’s relieved or disappointed. “Oh right, yeah, of- of course, sorry.”

“Why do you wanna know?”

“Um, n-no reason, just wondering. I’m sorry.”

Connor looks like he can tell that’s a lie, but he drops it and starts talking about what a bitch his AP Lit teacher is.

* * *

 

Evan and Jared get in a fight after school.

Jared just walks up and starts talking about hanging out over the weekend, and all Evan can think about is middle school and the letters and how Jared only talks to him out of obligation. Evan snaps.

“L-Look, Jared,” he says without making eye contact, “I’ll tell my mom that- you- that you’re nice to me, okay? For your c-c-car insurance. So- you can- just l-leave me alone, alright?”

This is the part where Jared is supposed to leave and never come back, because he’s free now. He’s free from the burden of Evan. But instead Jared just stands there, incredulous, and scowls.

“Evan, what the fuck?”

Shit, _shit, he made Jared mad._ Evan just has to leave, then Jared will understand that he’s better off without him, everyone’s better off without him, but Jared catches Evan’s arm in a vice grip before he can move more than a step. “Dude, you can’t just drop that on me and fucking leave!”

“Why- why do you care!?” Evan yells, and he deliberately does not look to see if people are staring, “I get it, okay? All you do is make fun of me, I know you hate me, you want me to just- I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you, I get it! You can stop now!”

Something goes dark in Jared’s eyes. “Oh,” he laughs, “Okay, so now that Connor’s around to suck your dick, you don’t _need_ me anymore, is that what this is?”

Evan wants to tell him he’s wrong, Evan is the problem here, no one else, but the words get stuck in his throat and Jared just scoffs.

“Fuck you, Evan,” he says, “Connor’s not the one who stuck around your sorry ass all through middle school, when everyone and their mom hated you, but okay! Fine! Asshole.”

Jared gives him a shove and storms off, leaving Evan to walk home alone, feeling numb.

* * *

 

 **To: Evan**  
**From: Connor**  
_did u n kleinman have a fight or what_

 **To: Connor**  
**From: Evan**  
_No._  
_Msybr._  
_*Maybe._  
_Why do oyu ask?_  
_*you_

 **To: Evan**  
**From: Connor** _  
he told me to tell you he said fuck you evan asshole_

 **To: Connor**  
**From: Evan**  
_Haha yeah, that sounfs like soemthing he’d say._  
_*sounds_  
_*something_

 **To: Evan**  
**From: Connor** _  
do u wanna talk abt it or nah_

 **To: Connor**  
**From: Evan** _  
Not right now. Maybe later?_

 **To: Evan**  
**From: Connor**  
_cool_  
_r u ok rn tho_

_evan  
u there_

_ok im gonna assume ur dying or asleep  
\--- > Read 3:37 PM_

 

Evan puts his phone down and buries his face in his pillow, trying to will himself into sleep so that he can pretend he hasn’t spent the last few hours going over his memories, even though trying to process them through the numb cloud of exhaustion hanging over him is probably impossible.

(It was the last day of eighth grade, which meant everyone had to clean out their locker. Evan didn’t want to see if people kept feeding it notes, but what if they did? If he didn’t get them out, he’d get in trouble, or it would at least be an extra hassle for the janitors, and Evan desperately wanted to stop being a burden. Besides, he still got the notes every other day, in his notebooks or his backpack or down the back of his shirt. How bad could a few more be?

He brought a trash bag, just in case.

Evan’s locker was way in the back of the school, in between the faculty bathrooms and janitor’s closet. It was usually reserved for teacher’s aides, but they had made a special exception for Evan. Not that it made a difference in the end; he abandoned it almost immediately. Evan figured out that the more he tried to stop it, the worse it was going to get.

He opened his locker for the first time in six months and a flood of notes fell out- they filled a good portion of the locker. Sticky notes, torn off notebook paper, a few envelopes. Some messy, some in cursive, some in big block letters. They all said different things, but they all seemed to be begging him to kill himself.

Evan sighed, and started to fill up the trash bag.)

Evan scratches at his arm where his cast used to be. He always has been a bit of a people-pleaser.

* * *

 

Evan only realizes he had dozed off when he wakes up. His phone says 8:23 pm, so his mom probably isn’t home yet, and now he’s hungry, but there’s no way he’s ordering anything. Might as well get up, then. Evan swings his legs over the side of the bed and they hit something solid.

“Ow,” Connor says.

“Wh- Connor!?”

Sure enough, Connor is sitting on the floor, leaning against Evan’s bed and reading a book. “Hey,” he says, “You didn’t answer my texts, so I came over.”

He says it like it was a natural course of action, a simple cause-and-effect scenario, but Evan knows for a fact that Connor doesn’t give a shit, why would he? So that doesn’t make any sense.

“Look,” Connor says, “I don’t know what’s going on with you and Jared, and you don’t have to tell me. But he’s an asshole and you deserve better. So. Yeah.” With that, he shrugs and returns to his book like nothing had happened.

(“I just don’t understand,” Evan sighed. His voice was more confident back then, less encumbered by the weight of knowing how awful he was. “Why would anyone do this? And, and why _me_?”

Beside him, Jared didn’t even look up from his phone. “I don’t know, you’re kind of whiny and you cry a lot?”

“I do not!” Evan yelled, but he already felt pricks in the corners of his eyes.

Jared just laughed. “Whatever. It’s not a big deal, Evan. Pretty much everyone writes those. Hell, I’ve even dropped a few in there.”

Everything froze. Jared- Jared wrote them too?

“Oh.” Evan said, suddenly numb. His face had become wet, somehow, though he couldn’t remember having cried.

Jared looked up from his phone and stifled a laugh at Evan’s crying face. _Maybe they’re right,_ Evan thought. _Maybe I’m the problem after all._ )

“It’s-“ Evan starts, “Its not- not his fault. It- I started it, really, I just- I can’t get over this, um, this dumb thing, this really dumb thing that happened. To me. In middle school. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t even know why he’s apologizing. For being so sensitive? For wasting Connor’s time and energy? For once Connor seems to be at a loss for words. They don’t really talk about this stuff, they just bask in eachother’s presence until one or both of them stop crying.

“Well. Um,” Connor fiddles with the page of his book for a second, “What happened in middle school?”

Evan doesn’t want to talk about. He really, really doesn’t want to talk about it. When he brings it up with Dr. Sherman, he always leaves feeling worse than he started. But at the same time-

(There’s so much, it’s all so much, Evan couldn’t even begin to parse through the ocean of hate in his locker. His arms itched so, so bad. He was choking, drowning, everyone would be happier if he just died already, he’d spent the last week staring at the bottle of his mother’s sleeping pills waiting for himself to take the fucking leap but he’s a coward so instead he just sat there crying into his hands like some kind of-)

 -at the same time, if anyone would understand, it would be Connor.

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he’s blurting everything out- every note he read, every kid he knew contributed, every awful thing he’s thought about himself. Connor stares at the ceiling, listening silently.

When Evan’s done, Connor closes his eyes for a minute, like he’s calming himself down. Then he gets up, sits next to Evan on the bed, and wraps a single, bony arm around his shoulder.

“I didn’t know,” he says, “but I swear to god I’m going to murder every single person who ever hurt you.”

Evan laughs, and tears roll down his cheeks. “Don’t- you don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, well, I want to.”

They sit in silence like that for a while- Evan lets himself be held while Connor rubs his shoulder, touch so light Evan can barely feel it.

“In fifth grade, I got suspended for giving the kid who bullied me a concussion,” Connor says. It’s so out of left field that it comes off more humorous than anything else, and Connor gives Evan a shove and a glare for laughing at it- but there’s no fire behind it like there usually is with Connor. There’s just warmth.

Evan smiles, warm, and decides that everything is alright.

**Author's Note:**

> i found this on my computer from a year ago and i was very impressed with past me so i decided to publish it. I was bullied in middle school so i know firsthand how much it fucks with your self-esteem, but trust me- the best way to get revenge on the people who've tried to hurt you is to come out the other end loving yourself more than ever. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or a year from now- but eventually. At your own pace.
> 
> don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe for more angst


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